Category: animals

The Joy of Puppies

This is Millie. She is our 11 month old Australian Shepherd puppy
This is Millie. She is our 11 month old Australian Shepherd puppy

We’ve spent a lot of time the last two weeks thinking about Millie. Why? Well, two weeks ago D came home for lunch to find Millie splayed out on the floor wheezing. For the non dog owners out there that isn’t a good thing. D rushed Millie to the Veterinarian’s where after the poked and prodded her a bit, including sticking their hand down her throat they shrugged their shoulders and decided to take some x-rays. The x-rays showed that Millie’s tummy had quite a few rocks and pebbles in it. The Vet said he thought one of them was stuck in her throat but that it he might have pushed it back into her stomach during the poking and prodding. He let us take her home and hoped that Millie would be able to pass them (‘passing’ is the polite word that vets use when they are talking about poop and pooping.) We did that. I spent the evening and morning looking through Millie’s stool with a stick (stool is the polite word I use when I am talking about shit and shitting.) Sadly, I found nothing.

So, the next day I took Millie back and she spent the entire day at the vet’s. What was she doing there? Vomiting. A lot of vomiting. The Veterinarian induced vomiting (they had another polite word for it but I don’t remember what it was) What did Millie throw-up? Rocks, pebbles, sticks, leaves, and other miscellaneous plant and soil matter. Excellent, right? It would be except additional x-rays showed that Millie still had some rocks in her tummy, for all I know they are still there now. So, with Millie all cleaned out the vet sent us home with a bunch of medicine and told us that Millie would still sound a little bad but would be improving and that he’d call us again after the weekend to see how she was doing.

Millie was doing a little better. It’s hard to tell because the little tyrant pretty much spends half of the day running around being a menace and the other half trying to crawl in people’s lap for pet’s and puppy kisses. She still seemed to be having breathing trouble especially through her nose. We had asked the vet to check her nose after the vomiting, to do a throat and neck x-ray just to make sure. He told us he had probed the nose but not done any x-rays again, but that she was fine and mending. Except, the whole weekend passed and then Monday and Tuesday went by and Millie was still not breathing normal. D finally put her foot down and told the vet to x-ray Millie’s throat and neck, that there had to be something going on in that area or nose because Millie couldn’t breath. The veterinarian didn’t give her story much credence, they didn’t think anything was in her nose, but they did agree to x-ray her for free since they didn’t the last time we had asked. It was a good thing D was persistent.

That is Millie’s skull. That dense white mass behind her upper molars? That is a stone that was lodged in her nasal passage. As soon as the vet saw it they immediately prepped Millie for surgery. The surgery took over a hour and involved pushing a scope down Millie’s throat and then back up into her nasal passage so they could grab the stone and pull it out. But! The stone was too firmly lodged and so they had to shoot water under high pressure down her nose to help dislodge the stone. The vet hypothesized that the stone got up there during all the vomiting. That one of the pebbles went up the wrong tube in the process of being expelled from the stomach. We’re just glad that it’s now not IN Millie. It’s been three days since the surgery and Millie is doing much, much better, she seems to enjoy being able to breath through her nose again.  We’re happy she’s better and we’re not destitute!

Puppies, am I right?

ACK?! Here is a video about Cephalopods, Everyone loves those!

Keeping a schedule can be hard work, especially when you’re being hammered by work and have numerous other personal obligations. Spent the end of last week and the weekend back home in the desert where I was a groomsman for my best friend in high school. I didn’t have a lot of time for writing, or anything else really.

So, sorry about the filler post. Except it isn’t filler it’s a short, fascinating video about how camouflage in cephalopods works and how their ability to do it so well reveals that our ability to percieve the world, as it “really” is, is an illusion. Neat, huh?

Back to that wedding story; three piece black tuxedos in 100+ degree weather for over an hour? Not ideal.

Sea World at the Capitol – May 13, 2009

At first I thought it was unusual to see “wild” animals in a Senate chamber but after thinking about it for just a minute more it really seemed appropriate (especially if you’ve ever seen some of these Senators go at each other on the floor debating contentious legislation.)

This wasn’t a protest so I won’t be putting it under the Protest at the Capitol heading…  I don’t know why Sea World brought several of their animals to the Capitol before sending them to Southern California for the summer (another question, I forgot to ask there as well…)  At first I thought it was unusual to see “wild” animals in a Senate chamber but after thinking about it for just a minute more it really seemed appropriate (especially if you’ve ever seen some of these Senators go at each other on the floor debating contentious legislation.)  I think I saw all the animals that they brought into the Capitol, if there were larger animals on the grounds I missed them while working, so all the pictures and videos will be of smaller creatures…

That's me and that is a ? armadillo, I forgot to ask
That's me and that is a ? armadillo, I forgot to ask

When I first walked into the room there was a terrible screeching going on and on and on from one of the animals in a covered traveling case.  It turned out to be a black and white-ruffed lemur’s mating call, I don’t know who he thought he was an eligible mate in the Capitol…  I have to admit I enjoyed seeing wild animals while at work, (what other places of business have Sea World stopping by to show animals off?)  the coolest part was seeing the reactions of small children and kids as the looked at penguins and African porcupines, held an armadillo, and petted a lemur!

Here is an unedited video of them showing an African Porcupine:

Here is a short video of the penguins the brought in:

Here is footage of the lemur:

Here is some video of that look children get that I mentioned:

I doubt I’ll be seeing anything else as photogenic as these animals here this year!

On Whaling

Please go over and read the commentary on Japan’s decision to resume whaling over here at Wired, especially pay attention to the enlightened comments at the end the ones by “Rawhead” and “DarkMirage” are exceptional.  Then reflect back on that logic class you had take your second year in undergrad and try to point out as many fallacies as you can!  Just off the top of my head I noticed straw man, ad hominem, appeal to ridicule, and personal attack.

To the article, killing animals is barbaric, whether it’s a whale, cow, pig or chicken.  The Japanese should at least be honest enough to admit to what they’re actually doing with the whales. If you disagree with their policies you absolutely should boycott Japanese products and let companies know why.  If enough people did, the Japanese government would feel the pressure real quick,  the country depends on its exports. There is no cultural excuse for anything and anytime you hear someone appeal to their culture to defend some ethically dubious practice they are exercising another logical fallacy: appeal to common practice. Just because humans everywhere butchers all sorts of domesticated animals, doesn’t justify Japan slaughtering whales, but no one wants to be ethical first. Mostly because no one in politics, the general populous understands game theory. Oh, well I guess I could mention that there’s no good reason to kill those free roaming whales when we have those billions of plants and animals in food factories, but I wonder if they’d follow the logic!

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